“The study windows are open and you’ll
hear the clock striking. And mind you that you
are not to budge out of that graveyard until the last
stroke. As for you girls, you’ve got to
go without jam at supper for a week.”

Faith and Una looked rather blank. They were
inclined to think that even Carl’s comparatively
short though sharp agony was lighter punishment than
this long drawn-out ordeal. A whole week of
soggy bread without the saving grace of jam!
But no shirking was permitted in the club. The
girls accepted their lot with such philosophy as they
could summon up.

That night they all went to bed at nine, except Carl,
who was already keeping vigil on the tombstone.
Una slipped in to bid him good night. Her tender
heart was wrung with sympathy.

“Oh, Carl, are you much scared?” she whispered.

“Not a bit,” said Carl airily.

“I won’t sleep a wink till after twelve,”
said Una. “If you get lonesome just look
up at our window and remember that I’m inside,
awake, and thinking about you. That will be a
little company, won’t it?”

“I’ll be all right. Don’t
you worry about me,” said Carl.

But in spite of his dauntless words Carl was a pretty
lonely boy when the lights went out in the manse.
He had hoped his father would be in the study as
he so often was. He would not feel alone then.
But that night Mr. Meredith had been summoned to
the fishing village at the harbour mouth to see a dying
man. He would not likely be back until after
midnight. Carl must dree his weird alone.

A Glen man went past carrying a lantern. The
mysterious shadows caused by the lantern-light went
hurtling madly over the graveyard like a dance of
demons or witches. Then they passed and darkness
fell again. One by one the lights in the Glen
went out. It was a very dark night, with a cloudy
sky, and a raw east wind that was cold in spite of
the calendar. Far away on the horizon was the
low dim lustre of the Charlottetown lights. The
wind wailed and sighed in the old fir-trees.
Mr. Alec Davis’ tall monument gleamed whitely
through the gloom. The willow beside it tossed
long, writhing arms spectrally. At times, the
gyrations of its boughs made it seem as if the monument
were moving, too.

Carl curled himself up on the tombstone with his legs
tucked under him. It wasn’t precisely
pleasant to hang them over the edge of the stone.
Just suppose—­just suppose—­bony
hands should reach up out of Mr. Pollock’s grave
under it and clutch him by the ankles. That
had been one of Mary Vance’s cheerful speculations
one time when they had all been sitting there.
It returned to haunt Carl now. He didn’t
believe those things; he didn’t even really
believe in Henry Warren’s ghost. As for
Mr. Pollock, he had been dead sixty years, so it wasn’t
likely he cared who sat on his tombstone now.